“Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy? I don’t know if our life has a purpose and I don’t see that it matters. What does matter is that we’re a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

The other day, I got to pondering the words we use for meals. I was on my way to my favorite wine bar where I intended to have an early supper/late lunch and the fact that American’s don’t have a word for that meal got my brain spinning around the ways we talk about dining.

Breakfast, break fast, is just the first food of the day. A light breakfast is light in weight and doesn’t usually last very long. Toast, maybe an egg. Granola. Hot cereal like oatmeal that you can eat standing up. A big breakfast has a load of protein and is meant to stick with you. Frequently there are vegetables, too. Potatoes in the form of hash browns. Sliced tomatoes in the summer. Onions, peppers and mushrooms in the omelette. Fruit on egg bread, waffles and pancakes. A big breakfast isn’t a meal that you grab as you run out the door.

Brunch is a word that means garnish and, frequently, alcohol in your fruit juice. Brunch is languorous. It also means I’m not doing anything that takes effort before noon.

Lunch is the middle of the day meal. Big lunch means you will wish for a nap, later. Lunch happens anywhere from 11 AM to 3 PM.

Supper is the evening meal. Dinner is the biggest meal that is not breakfast. So, lunch or supper could be dinner. Sunday dinner is almost always lunch. But, a work day dinner is usually supper.

So, the question that came to my mind was “what is the afternoon equivalent of brunch?” Turns out, it’s afternoon tea. My Canadian friends tell me that tea is served around 3:30 or 4:00, there is tea to drink and something light to eat. We chuckled over a young acquaintance who had fussed at her sister to “eat your tea.” But, I think I want to adopt that usage. It’s a handy definition. And while a cream tea is one that includes jam and clotted cream in the snacks, I think a wine tea may become my occasional earlier-than-supper afternoon meal.

And, according to my English friend, high tea is a heavy meal served as workers come in from their labors ready for serious eats. I expect it comes from afternoon tea that waited a little too long and needed to be more filling since you were ravenous by the time you finally got have food.

Another word I am going to adopt is “fika.” It is a Swedish word and it means to have coffee and a bite and a chat with friends. It is a thing I love and now have a word for. It is not time specific. It is activity specific and it an activity I enjoy immensely.

Addendum:

I learned another meal word from my Spanish friend. “In Spain, there is an actual meal between lunch (which for them is always the largest meal of the day), and dinner, which is a lunch-sized portion late in the day, like 8 or 9 pm. I was always offered this meal, each day, even in the hospital! “Merienda”. It corresponds to the “tea” idea, but without mentioning tea. Coffee or tea might be offered, or beer or wine, and deli slices, bread, cookies, fruit. Oh, it happened around 5 pm. Very confusing.”

Chuck and I went adventuring into Virginia last Thursday, looking for a labyrinth in Boydton. Coming home, we stopped at Cedar Creek Gallery in Creedmoor, NC. (It’s right off I-85, and worth a visit.) In addition to a gallery and studios, they have lovely gardens and a little plant sale area.

I wandered over to the plants (as I must) and found a bat flower blooming its heart out. I have seen pictures of them, but had never seen one in person. And they had a relatively small one (with no blossoms) for sale for $5.

It’s a terrestrial orchid and needs low light and high humidity. I accidentally did the right thing when I repotted it with extra vermiculite in the mix. I have it up against the back wall of my house where it gets early morning sun and it seems to be happy there. For now. When nighttime temps get close to 50ºF/10ºC, we will bring it into the living room and put a humidifier nearby.

I have friends who think I have a green thumb. I think I am simply willing to give a plant a shot. And I read the instructions that come on those little tags. (That wasn’t a lesson quickly learned.) And my yard has all the choices for sun.

I think the trick to keeping plants, is finding things that like what you have to offer. If you tend to want to water a lot, don’t get cacti or succulents. If you have a tendency to forget to water, go for those. And don’t beat yourself up if the plants you wish you could grow don’t love your climate.

When I lived in Charleston, SC, I had a collection of bromeliads and all of them bloomed for me. I moved from that house to a different angle and amount of sun and they all died. My care didn’t change, but the environment did. That has affected my plant expectations since then.

I believe in the Big Bang and I believe it is the breath of God and it is God. Exhale creation, inhale entropy. And it is all Now. That part of the Now that forms into Ingram is part of Us before we are born and part of Us when we separate out of the moment we inhabit as individual particles and return to the greatness of All. And the part of Creation that was his life is still happening.

I am still laughing with my grandmother. I am still gossiping with my dad. I am still holding my infant son and I am still fucking up all they ways that I did that, too. And my future is unknown to me, but it is already happening, too. Not as it is supposed to happen, simply as it does happen.

So, that part of the liturgy that talks about “as it was and is and evermore shall be” really works for me. My dad is with me forever, I just can’t hold his hand any more. The particle of Now that is “me” misses that and cries sometime.

I do not believe that the Breath and God are separate. I believe Singularity.